I had been waiting for about an hour at the hospital.

The ambulance finally came after about 15 minutes and took me and Kruz to the hospital. They immediately rushed him to the emergency room and told me to wait in the waiting room. And I had been waiting for an hour.

Just as I was about to check my phone for the umphteenth time, I saw Dennis burst through the big double doors of the hospital along with Ryder and Micah trailing behind him.

They immediately took sight of me and rushed over to my side. I stood up to greet them.

"Hey" Dennis greeted breathlessly. "We got here as fast as possible. How is he?"

"He's in the ER" I said.

He hung his head, a little of his hair falling on his forehead in the process. "Shit!" He cursed.

Dennis started pacing and letting out strings of curse words. Micah went over to him and tried to calm him down but was failing miserabley.

Ryder took that moment to come over to me. He cupped my face and brought my head so that I was looking into his eyes .

"Are you ok?" He asked. Fear, concern and worry were swimming in his blue pools.

I nodded my head."I'm fine" I said,my voice barely above a whisper. "I'm just worried about Kruz." I hung my head. "You should've seen him. He was crying and vomiting. He was in so much pain. I-" my voice cracked at the end. I couldn't finish the sentence. Tears rolled down my cheek as I thought back to the time after I called the ambulance.

      Flashback

"They're on their way kruz, everything is going to be fine" I said to him as I rubbed his hair trying to soothe him.

I had helped him out of the car and I was sitting on the ground, leaning on the car, with Kruz's head in my lap. He was very tired and kept falling asleep but each time he did, I would wake him up.

"Dori" he said in a weak voice as he looked up at me.

"Yea, honey , I'm here. What is it?"

"Am I gonna die?" His question shook me to my core. It sent a shivers down my spine and raised goose bumps on my skin. Another tear slipped down my cheeks at the thought of Kruz dying

I had grown to love him and all the boys. I didn't want to lose any of them. I couldn't.

"Of course not. You're Gonna be fine,I promise" I didn't believe myself. I felt as if I was lying through my teeth. But I had to give him something to hold on to. I had to give him hope.  It may have been false hope, but it was still hope.

After a few minutes, he started vomiting again, but this time, it came out as a dark red liquid. Blood.

He cried out in pain as he vomited.

What was happening to him?

I began to get extremely worried. Vomiting up blood was not normal. Something was seriously wrong. And I was worried how seriously wrong it was.

       End of flashback

"Ssh. It's ok Dori. Every thing is gonna be fine, I promise. I'm so sorry you had to go through that" Ryder held me and placed his chin on the top of my head. He whispered soothing words into my ears until I was finally calm and had stopped crying. He placed a kiss in my hair and led me to sit down.

"You're feeling better?" I loved his British accent.

I nodded my head. "I'm fine" I whisphered. He nodded in content and then headed over to where Micah was busy trying to calm a panicking Dennis.

After a few moments, he finally came back over to where I was sitting along with the other two boys. They all sat down and after a few silent moments, I finally decided to ask the question that I had been wanting to ask ever since they arrived.

"Is this the first time this has happened to him? Kruz,I mean. Is this a one time thing or?"

They looked at each other, seemingly communicating with their minds. They were obviously contemplating whether to tell me or not.

"Guys, come on. I'm you're friend now, I deserve to know what's going on. No more secrets" I said, urging them to talk.

Micah sighed. "No, it's not the first time this has happened to him. It's happened on more than one occasion" short, blunt and to the point. They obviously didn't want to tell me anything. But I desperately wanted to know what was wrong.

If it happened on more than one occasions then it means something must be seriously wrong. People don't just start vomiting blood occasionally.

"Why?" I asked, concern lacing my voice. "Why does this happen to him?"

Micah looked at Ryder who nodded his head as if granting him permission to speak.

"He's sick. Let's just leave it at that" he said.

This made my blood boil. I stood up from my chair and faced them. " Are you serious?! My friend is in the emergency room right now with doctors who are doing who knows what with him! I was the one who found him vomiting his guts out on the side of the road outside of town when you guys didn't even know that he left the house. I comforted him while we were waiting for the the ambulance to come and I stayed with him the whole ride! So you guys don't have the right to come in here and tell me that he's sick and leave it at that. I deserve to know what the hell is going on!" I was fuming at the end. They all looked at me with shocked expressions. They hadn't expected me to say something like that.

Even I was surprised that I did it too. I wouldn't normally shout or yell at anyone, not even when I was upset.

They recovered from their shock and looked at each other once more.

"Dori, you're Right. You do deserve to know everything. You're our friend and you should know." Ryder began. "And as much as we want to be the ones to tell you, we can't. It's a very sensitive topic that's not ours to share. We're sorry but Kruz should be the one to tell you"

In his eyes, you could see that he was telling the truth. How could I be so stupid?! Of course they couldn't tell me. It's not their place to.

As much as I wanted to know what they were hiding, I decided to respect their decision and Kruz's secret.

I would just ask him when he got out. He would tell me.

I sat back in my seat and waited.

After about 17 minutes and 39 seconds of silence, shy glances, pacing and intense fidgeting, a doctor finally came up to us.

We all stood up to greet him. "Hi, you guys are the family of Kruz Wallace?" He asked, greeting us with a small smile.

I took a moment to drink him in. He looked in his mid 40s. He had wrinkles on his face which was cleanly shaven. His thin hair was black with little strands of grey sticking out. His eyes were grey too.

"Yea, we're his family. Is he okay?" Dennis said in a rush. He was eager to find out what was happening with his best friend. He had been a mess ever since he got to the hospital. He was fidgeting, pacing, making occasional outbursts at how slow the service there was. All in all, he was worried. Actually, worried is an understatement.

His small smile faded slightly as he let out a sigh. "Kruz is in a pretty bad state. He lost alot of blood and nutrients. He's passed out at the moment and we took that time to do an x-ray and things aren't looking too good. He-" he was cut off by Micah.

"Hold up." He said to the doctor, then he turned to me. At first I was confused as to why but then I figured it out. They didn't want me to hear what the doctor was going to say. It would have given me an insight as to what his sickness was and they didn't want that.

He had a sorry look in his eyes "It's fine" I said to reassure him. I gave him a small smile then went back to my seat.

This is  gonna be a long night.